Early December, Konoha Year 58.
The steps outside the Clan School had been swept. A thin layer of snow had fallen the night before, and overlapping broom marks ran from the courtyard gate to the third step.
Kiyoshi went up the steps and inside.
He was not teaching today. He sat in the back row, the youngest person in the classroom sitting in on the lesson.
The clan would not let him teach.
There was no place for him at the lectern, nor among the students. He had yielded both and sat against the wall instead.
The classroom was seated by grade, with first-years near the door and older students near the windows.
An elder of the clan was teaching clan history, speaking of the snow in the year the clan was founded.
"The snow that year came up to our knees. Your grandfathers' grandfathers walked through that snow to enter the Clan Grounds."
Pages rustled all across the room.
"The day the snow stopped, the first plaque was hung above the main gate of the Clan Grounds."
The elder continued, spending almost half the lesson on the story behind that plaque.
"The first winter after the clan was founded was the hardest. Only by each person setting aside a handful of grain did we make it to spring."
The older students read along, reaching the passage about storing grain and preparing for winter.
A first-year near the door yawned and got an elbow from the child beside them.
The sound of reading squeezed through the gaps in the windows and out into the courtyard.
A patch of the back wall stood bare. The shelf that had once held the textbooks had been removed, leaving a mark paler than the surrounding wall.
The books were up on the slope now.